


All Downhill From Here

by emmram



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, Pre Season 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-27
Updated: 2014-10-27
Packaged: 2018-02-22 20:46:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2521256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmram/pseuds/emmram
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Remember when Dean, fresh out of Hell, mentioned wanting to watch some movie at the theatre and Sam said he already saw it? Ruby wanted to see that movie and she dragged Sam along.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Downhill From Here

**Author's Note:**

> This was my submission to ohsam's 2011 Sam-centric h/c fic challenge for this prompt from the very awesome vail_kagami:  
> Between season 3 and 4, Ruby/Sam. Remember when Dean, fresh out of Hell, mentioned wanting to watch some movie at the theater and Sam said he already saw it? Ruby wanted to see that movie and she dragged Sam along.
> 
> I, uh. This fic. It's weird, and I'm not sure it is what you were looking for, but here it goes anyway. Also: Ruby was a challenge to write, but also incredibly fun.
> 
> Warnings: SPOILERS for s4, some swearing, very mild het, present-tense, metaphor-abuse, my struggle to get the Ruby PoV out.

_ **All Downhill From Here** _

  
Ruby waits.

She can actually sense it when Sam's around, these days—she wouldn't call it an _aura_ , no, no, none of that New Age-y crap, but the quiet grief he carries around like a frickin thundercloud above his head. It's unmistakable even when he's clean-shaven and sober and trying to wrangle his way into a crime scene, using about as many things he learned on TV as he possibly can (how he and Dean ever got any job done this way is beyond her). People, they take one look at him, at the hard lines of his face and the eyes that never quite seem to smile with the rest of his face, feel the suffocating _urgency_ he brings with him, and take a couple of steps back, almost unconsciously.

She finds it kind of amusing, actually.

She feels it now, the heaviness in the air, the sense of impending danger that once used to mean that bad news was coming, but now just screams _Sam_. The door to the cabin slams open and Sam strides in, a sheaf of papers in one hand, loosening his tie with the other. He throws the papers on the desk, and as they fly everywhere, he finally rips off his tie.

"Tough day at work, honey?" Ruby asks him coyly.

Sam glares at her. "It was a bust," he says. "This lead. _Your_ lead."

"Yeah, well." Ruby shrugs. "Sometimes I make mistakes too, you know."

Sam shakes his head and looks away, his jaw working. Ruby sighs. The _grief_ she can deal with—she was expecting that, as well as the anger that the grief fuelled. But _this_ —the constant tension, the urgency to kill Lilith _right the fuck now_ , pushing himself to his limits and far beyond—she can't, she really can't. She's afraid he'll burn himself out before they even get to the good part. And—

She's kind of _really_ looking forward to the good part.

"Y'know," he says finally, "I still can't figure what you're trying to _get_ at. It's been over a month since you told me these powers would help me find Lilith... and so far we've gotten jack-squat. I can't use them on a consistent basis, and now you're _deliberately_ misleading me—"

"Woah, slow down there!" Ruby raises her eyebrows. "Who said anything about _deliberate_? Do you—" She shakes her head. "Do you have _any_ idea just _how_ far I'm sticking my neck out for you here, Sam? I'm not just screwing around here, you know. If Lilith finds out that I'm helping you..."

Sam snorts. "Right. Because you're just one of those demons who helps others out of the goodness of your _heart_." There is a derision in his voice that she supposes she should be used to, but has to admit stings a little. Just a little.

"Not others, Sam," she says quietly. "Just you."

He turns away, his shoulders rigid. "Just—Ruby. Please. Go away." He begins obsessively rearranging the papers, stacking them neatly into piles, right angles sharp enough to give paper-cuts. She ponders briefly about storming the hell out of there (destiny or not, taking shit from a Winchester is still something she deeply resents), but then looks at Sam, really _looks_ at him, sees the minute tremors in his hands, and knows that he's probably going to spend the night crying into a bottle. Several bottles, if his track record is anything to go by.

Sammy Winchester—demon saviour, desperate vigilante and lost little boy all rolled into one, and Ruby can't help but remember feeling his hot touch along her skin and thinking _mine, all of it, it's mine_.

She walks up to him, gently traces the corded muscles of his forearm. "No can do," she says. "Sorry."

Sam sighs and pulls his arm away from her touch. "Ruby, please, just go."

She promptly settles on the table, scattering the papers he'd so meticulously arranged. "Now, that's no way to treat a woman, Sam. Frankly, I've seen better from you." She reaches out, loosely threads her fingers through his. "Come on. Let's get out of here—do something. A movie, even dinner." She grins. "It'll be like a real date."

Again he pulls away, and she sighs. She has to remind herself that this—what all of this would lead to—is worth every second of desperate wrangling with an emo behemoth of a hunter.

"Just one night, Sam," she says. "Lilith can wait one more night to die."

"One more night," he repeats bleakly, and she knows he is thinking of Dean. Always Dean, burning and screaming, populating Sam's nightmares and his every waking moment, and she regrets making that statement. "Sam—"

"One more night," he repeats, stronger, slightly higher, and the shaking in his hands is more pronounced, "why the _fuck_ not?" He grabs his car keys, shrugs on his jacket. When he sees that she hasn't yet made a move, he says, alarmingly calm, "this is what you wanted, right? One more night. I can _be_ —without Dean. I _can_." With that, he strides out the door.

Ruby stares after him, wondering what kind of new creature she's unleashed, before shrugging and following after him.

At least this beats cleaning up after his hangover in the morning.

* * *

  
They decide to watch the new _Indiana Jones_ movie, because, well, why not?

"Dean would've loved to see this," Sam tells her at the ticket counter. "He was looking forward to it for a long time."

"Yeah, okay, Sam, that's the thirteenth time you've told me that," she says, and smiles tightly at the very uncomfortable looking kid behind the glass.

Sam shrugs. "I promised him that we'd see it together." And his face shuts down, takes on that steely, impenetrable quality, and Ruby doesn't quite know whether to rejoice or despair.

It isn't until that they're sitting in the dark theatre, watching the opening credits roll, that Ruby gets what's going on. Or at least what she _thinks_ is going on.

She watches him more than the movie; watches how he holds himself, muscles rigid, hands folded on his lap, his eyes never leaving the screen. It's familiar and disconcerting all at once, because this is exactly what he looks like when he's on a _job_. He's so determined to shut down the parts of him that still grieve, the parts that still hold him back from going one hundred percent after Lilith, that this movie is more mission than recreation.

It's both a silent apology to his brother and the promise of sure vengeance.

She doesn't ever wish to be a participant in a devotion _that_ intense. But she wonders.

Sam flinches when she leans toward him, slipping her hand into one of his. "I think you're missing the point of this night," she whispers. "You gotta _relax_."

He glares at her, but doesn't take his hand away. She rubs circles on his hand with her thumb and wonders about the man next to her; thinks Sam would be fascinating even if her entire life's work _didn't_ depend on obsessively psycho-analysing him. She'd expected Sam's unrelenting drive for revenge; what she hadn't foreseen is just how far Sam is willing to go, and how deep his reserves of strength are. It's a delightful contrast with just how fucking _fragile_ he seems on the outside—all wide, beautiful eyes, flesh that bleeds so easily, a ravenous lust that answers the call for love of _any_ kind.

With every moment she spends with him, she can see more and more why he was Chosen.

... But she's getting ahead of herself. Sam still needs a lot of work; she needs to be patient.

She tries distracting herself by paying more attention to the movie. There's a ridiculous sequence going on where people are jumping from one vehicle to the other while they speed through a dense forest. For a brief moment, she dreams: she dreams that she is that woman jumping onto the back of that jeep, and Sam is the hero catching her.

Except—it's not a jeep, and it's not Sam. It's _Him_ , and ( _he_ ) strokes her hair with one large hand, whispers in her ear just how _proud_ of her ( _he_ ) is, the innumerable ways in which she will be rewarded... and then leans in to kiss her, and it is all the love she has ever desired and will ever need—

She's shaken out of the fantasy by the sound of a large explosion on-screen. She quickly checks on Sam to see if he's noticed anything, but he's still looking straight ahead, jaw set and eyes focussed, and Ruby almost asks him if he's ever considered putting that much concentration into his exorcisms.

But of course he does. He nearly kills himself with every exorcism that he performs.

She looks at him, the fragile-strong man, the man with the demon blood, the man who will one day save her, the man who was Chosen, and thinks: _I need to help him move forward_.

She spends the rest of the movie staring at their intertwined hands, the seeds of an idea germinating in her head.

* * *

  
Ruby insists on dinner afterward, of course.

It's nothing fancy: just the diner on the outskirts of town, a dozen miles from the cabin. But he's considerate enough to order for both of them (an extra order of large French fries for her, thanks). His hands are still trembling minutely—she can tell that he is itching to go back to the cabin and drown his sorrows in JD, but he bites placidly into his sandwich and chews every bite with a deliberation that would be amusing if it isn't so fascinating.

"Y'know," Ruby says finally, idly dragging a fry through ketchup, "I have to confess. I _did_ fake the lead."

Sam chews, swallows. "I know," he says.

She raises an eyebrow. "And—you aren't mad at me?"

Sam sets his sandwich down, meets her eyes placidly. "I get it, Ruby. I get what you're trying to do. And all I'm saying is—whatever you want me to do, I'm ready to do it now. Anything."

Ruby blinks. Well, then. Even after everything, Sam can still surprise her. "Not so fast, cowboy," she says with an easy grin. "We'll take this one step at a time, huh? And at the end of it all, I promise you, you will have Lilith's head on a plate."

Sam nods—cold and calm, all that desperation pushed into a tight knot somewhere in the back of that gigantic head. "Good," he says, and Ruby feels a thrill of excitement like she hasn't felt before. _This_ is the Sam she was looking for—the Sam she can legitimately see becoming ( _him_ ).

She kisses him when they get back to the cabin, and for the first time tastes something other than grief and whiskey: she tastes _power_ and the will to get it, and she feels inexplicably proud of him.

"Sam," she says into his mouth, and he starts taking off her clothes slowly, almost reverently. She almost misses the frantic grief, the need for acceptance, the need to be _needed_ —then realises that they were never gone.

 _She_ needs.

( _there's nothing inside here but me, Sam_ )

In the morning, she watches him sleep. He sleeps fitfully as always—his eyes are going back and forth restlessly behind his lids, and soon enough, he's going to wake up abruptly, his brother's name on his lips. He usually reaches for the alcohol as soon as he wakes up, but she doesn't know what to expect today.

She walks toward the window, lifts her wrist to the sunlight, and examines the plump veins under the skin. One addiction for another...

She can never compete with Sam's devotion to Dean—but she's okay with that; she doesn't _need_ to. All she needs is the power of that devotion—and the places that it can take Sam.

"Dean," she hears, and she smiles. He is waking.

Ruby waits.

_**Finis** _


End file.
